G'day America! Ramblings from an Aussie living the dream...

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

It all happened so quickly...I mean, I had been thinking about going home for a while, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy that ticket. Come on, who wants to leave new york city? But one snowy, lonely day I realised that right this moment I wanted to be with my family and friends so I literally went online and bought a ticket home. I decided to make it surprise so I only told my sister in law. I couldn't wait to see everybody's face once I got home.In my last days there I made sure I visited Manhattan. I did some shopping, eating...well I felt like a tourist again. I even somehow made it to Jersey Gardens Mall in which it took me 2 hours via bus (usually a 30 min drive). I needed a suitcase and presents for the kiddies. But just my luck on my way home it started snowing and as I stood on some random corner in Union City with my suitcase in tow, waiting for the 83 bus to Hackensack I realised I hated snow sooo much. I waited for over an hour and befriended a Mexican dude and we took turns in seeing if the bus was coming as we hid from the wind behind a convenience store. No shelter, so we were turning into snow men, my Mexican friend gave up and went home. I waited it out a further 15 minutes and then walked into the convenience store to ask for a cab rink.... and yes you guessed it, the bus literally just drove by, like I was in a movie! The cab rink was 3 blocks away so the suitcase and I made our way in the snow and at this stage I was willing to give my firstborn child to somehow just to get me home and away from the snow. To top it off the cabbie only took cash in which I didn't have so we had to drive around looking for an ATM. But I did get home safe and gave the cabbie a nice tip for his efforts.My experience had its ups and downs and I learned a lot. The New Kids cruise was of course the highlight of my experience the snow well...exciting for the first 5 minutes and then f***ing annoying after that! I met some amazing people in which I will miss dearly. (I've already been teaching my nephews to say "Whatttt?" with an attitude). For those of you concerned Ogles2 and Dj Sofka will be okay without me. I haven't broken the news yet to Eagle..I'm kinda afraid of his reaction!So I'm here to stay and here being Sydney, Australia, which will always be home, no matter where I am in the world. America is a fantastic place, especially for those with money. Once you're living there the vacation is over and reality sets in. I lived amongst hard working people, who hardly got paid enough to pay their rent, who lived off food stamps and who feared that any false move and they would lose their job. It makes me realise how lucky we really do have it in Australia.So for now this chapter is closed....but we never know what the future holds. I still hold my green card.....I realised I didn't take enough pics whilst I was there, but the memories will stay in my mind and heart forever.

Sunday, 29 December 2013

Every year for the past 5 years my friends Leo and Sunil
have hosted a Christmas Craptacular. This year I had the pleasure of attending
and although it took me 3 hours to get to Brooklyn it was well worth it.

I know you’re all wondering ‘what’s a Christmas
craptacular?’I was wondering the same
thing myself. You see it’s a party where everybody brings a gift that they
received that they didn’t like and they re-gift it. Some people’s crap is other
peoples treasure right! The gifts were all placed at a table and we all drew
numbers for the order in which we would choose our gift. You get to pick
anything from the table. But wait, there’s a catch. The person who draws after
you can either keep their gift or swap their gift with the ones that had
already opened their gifts.

Now I was number 16 out of about 22 people so I thought
cool, I’m near the end I have a whole bunch to choose from. The award for the
crappiest gift would have definitely been the broken scissors somebody got and
the award to the most favourite “crap” that kept getting stolen was the
Monopoly board game with the Barbra Streisand CD coming in a close second. I
got a facial steamer in which I swapped for that Monopoly board game, only to
have the game stolen from me and I was left with a few bits and pieces. (pic
below)

All in all it was a hilarious evening. It wasn’t about the
gifts, it was about the laughs and the company.

Sunday, 15 December 2013

Okay somebody please buy me a ticket I am ready to go home.
I forgot about the winters here and the havoc that snow creates. Do I really
want to do this over again? Me thinks not. Remind me why I didn’t go to
California again….?

I just realised that Christmas is two weeks away and the end
of the year is right after that. With today being my day off I decided to head
into Manhattan to have a look at the Christmas lights on 5th avenue.
My was that a mistake. Why do I always forget the amount of tourists there are
there. I absolutely hate crowds. People strolling, stopping in your path, people
not paying attention when the light opens to walk, and people just oblivious to
anything else around them. You see now I understand why people say New Yorkers
are arrogant. (which I don’t think they are). These tourists can drive you
mental! I find it’s the tourists that are rude and expecting everything because
they flash a bit of green around and want to come, see, ruin (in some
instances) and then leave.

Which brings me back to my story….I didn’t quite make it all
the way up to the end of 5th avenue. I hooked a left at the
Rockefeller Tree, did a quick snap shot and then pushed my way through the
crowds back to the bus stop.

Can somebody please remind me not to try this again next
year!

Oh and the decorations look the same as last year from what
I could see.

So I was sick and I went to the doctor and they had a coffee machine there. Zlata doesn't have that!

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Friendsgiving, yes this is a new term I learned from some of
my customers. Whilst they were shopping up a storm I politely asked them if
they were shopping in advance for Thanksgiving. They responded with no, not
yet. They were celebrating Friendsgiving the weekend before thanksgiving. Now
what a great idea. As thanksgiving is supposed to be about family and
eating, why not have a mirror day to that where you eat up big time with all
your friends. Yes I know us wogs have barbeques every other weekend so that
would kinda defeat the purpose, but still why not have a fancy dinner with a
centerpiece and napkins and a 4 course meal…oh wait that’s a slava. (name
day/saints day).

I don’t want to offend anybody as I’m not too familiar with
thanksgiving but I know America celebrates it as a ‘holiday’. What I know is
that most people eat turkey, cranberry sauce, yams and pumpkin pies. Why do I
know this? Because no joke possibly every customer I had, bought all of these
items. I did make it known to anybody who would listen that I did not have any
plans as clearly my family is in Australia. Yes, I used the poor me card, one
that works on numerous occasions. (Aneta used to buy me cupcakes or chocolate
to make me feel loved) This time it didn’t work. Luckily for me
I was working that day so I was thankful for having a job. But I was not going
to let the day go by without having my turkey, mashed potatoes and corn. After all Ogles 2 and DJ Sof are my family here. As a
bonus work gave us a free (yes there’s that word free again) pie that
complemented my dinner. Eagle also took me to his house where we celebrated Macedonian style. A house full of chain smokers... yes it made me feel like I was in Macedonia all over again. All in all the day turned out much better than I had anticipated.

P.S I did however, get an invitation for next years
thanksgiving from somebody at work. It’s already looking up!

Sunday, 1 December 2013

You know how much I love +Bethenny and considering the show
is only in Manhattan it would be a shame to not go again. So this time Trish
landed 3 tickets and Trish, Mrs G and myself made our way over to the studio in
the cold weather. Now of course the show was great and I loved seeing Bethenny
again. Her guests were (for those of you
who watch reality tv) the Fashion Queens trio, as well as (for those living in
the NYC region) Greg and Rosanna from Good Day New York.

Much to our surprise we were also fortunate enough to
receive gifts as well including headphones, jewellery, recipe reader and
saucepans. Who doesn’t love a freebie? I get excited over freebie samples in
magazines. Yes I’ve become one of those. Back in the motherland I use to ignore
the people handing out free stuff at town hall station thinking, meh I can just
go buy it. Here, when work is offering free coffee, and even though it tastes
sh*t, I’m there. When they’re leaving apples in the back for everybody, I’m
taking one even though I don’t even like apples.

Oh yeah back to my day…. We continued the day with lunch at
Serendipity 3 and of course dessert- the frozen hot chocolate (well I had the
caramel which was just as good!)

We then ended the day at our favourite hair salon in
Manhattan on 14th street. With our hair freshly coloured and blow
dried we went….well….home of course. It was cold and we spent all of our money
already. Do you know that here you have to tip your hairdresser, and not only
the hairdresser but the person who washes your hair at the basin too. Whoever
said America was cheaper lied. Anything that involves tips makes it that much
more expensive and those of you who have been here understand.